For those unfamiliar, Oregon Trail II was another milestone game of my childhood. Released in 1995, the game was brutally unforgiving, and, despite a lengthy in-game guide, highly secretive of its mechanical functions. Learn by doing seemed to be it's philosophy.

First off, above we have a transcription of the town of Independence's background theme song. A jazzy upbeat version of the title theme, it was welcoming tune for each frequent restart into the starting town. I worked on this personally, while also contracting it out to various fiverr individuals. Overall I think it came out faithful to the in-game version.

Files here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F5MU3QlG830XpIP7s80Ggth2xaQUWvRJ

Oregon Trail II was interesting in that the disk contained installations for both Windows and Mac OS. As Windows was also transitioning into Windows 95 during that period, the CD also included a 16-bit and 32-bit Windows executable.

Surprisingly, the game still runs remarkably well for being over 25 years old. There is one little catch for Windows. To allow the game to properly find the DATA files you will need to edit the OREGONII.INI

Look for this line:

[cdrom]
rsrcpath=C:\Users\Bob\Desktop\Oregon_Trail\Data

Change the rsrcpath to folder containing the OTII32.EXE

In-game cinematics will not run, but most of the features are still operable.

Next up: Did you know that the in-game music is 8-bit mono, but there are actually a couple Red Book audio tracks that can be heard in any music CD player? Just pop in your Oregon Trail II disk. These are 16-bit stereo tracks with minor edits compared to the In-game versions.

Take a listen below:

So, now that we've listened to some rocking musical tracks, you may be tempted to go looking for the entire OST on the interwebs. Well, boy do I have a shocker for you - those OST available on YouTube and other sites are subtly wrong. How so? Well, their Tempo is off by approximately -0.690%. You may not be a purist, and they are very listenable as-is, but if you are doing a transcription like I was, you will find the BPM is incorrect. This can be verified with the Red Book audio versions if you have them.

Finally, I want to leave you off with some recent developments in the Oregon Trail II scene.
It looks like atleast one other person on this planet has wondered, what the heck are those purchasable Grandfather clocks for?

katstasaph is doing a reverse engineering effort of the executable source code to figure it all out:
https://github.com/katstasaph/otii

You can read some of her Reddit posts for more information:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Oregontrail/comments/gbksow/oregon_trail_ii_reverse_engineeringdata_diving/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Oregontrail/comments/mm8fli/oregon_trail_ii_data_divingreverse_engineering/

Extra: Remember how I told you the game's feedback is poor? My brother and I would buy chickens and pigs as 'pets'. But then later we would open our inventory to find 0 pigs and chickens. You have to go back through the journal to realize they wander off, or get eaten, or just died. :(

by Zott820

The Nintendo Switch launch date is about two months away and Nintendo has released many new trailers to get people hyped for the console. The franchise I care most about and will be the launch title is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There is a lot of new information to gleam from the trailer so let me dive in:

Voice Acting
The most surprising aspect of the trailer is we hear voices of characters speaking. At 1:17 in the trailer, we hear the first ever spoken voices in a modern Zelda game (CD-i Zelda games are a joke). Finally after years and years of all characters being silent except for grunts, Zelda characters will be voices. We also hear Zelda speaking near the end of the trailer as well as a Goron & the Deku Tree. Finally the King of Hyrule says to save his daughter. If Nintendo is smart, they will keep Link the silent protagonist.

Large Environments
The trailer shows off impressive scale very much like Shadows of the Colossus and Skyrim. Link is climbing the side of a mountain, running through snow and harmonizing with grassy fields. The world layout looks very much like classic Zelda games with similar elements moved around or remixed. I saw a new looking Gerudo Village & Death Mountain

Orchestrated Music?
I'm holding my breath that all the music in the game will finally be orchestrated. Koji Kondo working on Twilight Princess had wished to orchestrate the entire game but instead they went with synthesized music. Skyward Sword still sounded like high quality midi tracks. Can Nintendo finally invest the money to do the soundtrack right after so many other professional orchestras have covered their music.

Ganon is Back & So is Princess Zelda
The calamity Ganon is back. At 2:02 you can see Ganon's purple ghostly form capturing Castle Hyrule. We also see the Deku Tree at 2:12 in front of the Master Sword grove. This is important as there as many Zelda games where they introduce new villains or characters to smoke screen it was really Ganon all along. Thank you old lady in the trailer for not beating us around the bush and hiding the villain behind general darkness in the world. It's Ganon and fans know he must get a taste of the Master Sword.

100 years ago something happened. What happens next for Link? We'll find out March 3rd, 2017 as the Nintendo Switch is released

by BlueZero

The most refreshing thing at E3 for me is in the South Hall, they invited a band to perform. Super Soul Bros. captured my attention as I wandered the hall when I heard their live music.

I recorded some of their performance when they were playing a video game medley mix:

by BlueZero

Day 2 of E3, we're checking out the Ubisoft booth. Check out photos from e3 live today on our Twitter @BVGB throughout the day.

Below we've embedded our tweets from the Day 2 on the show floor.

Thank you to the new followers and everyone who liked the tweets. Covering E3 is always a gargantuan task and we had a ton of fun! What do you think will be at E3 next year? Let us know in the comments below.

by BlueZero

Imagine yourself thrust into the world of 3D game design on an unfamiliar game engine. That was my experience with Danger at the Disco. Created for a week-long game jam with the Video Game Development club at UCI, I was thrust into an unknown team, and presented my first experience with Unity. It was also a bold venture into uncharted waters considering all the previous games I had worked on had been 2D using home-built engines. After the initial submission during the Winter Quarter of 2012, I worked alone on-and-off to polish the game play over the next two months. Below are some notes about various portions of development:

Gameplay:

The project concept was conjured as a battle arena with two or more players fighting for colored tile dominion. Capture the flag style, it was touch to claim. The player with the most tiles after a set duration was deemed the victor. It was I who threw in the Disco theme. From there it wasn’t much of a mind stretch to deem the capture-able tiles the facets of a disco ball above the dance floor. With many heads turning to Super Mario Galaxy for the gravity inspiration, we weren’t sure how to pull it off. Someone eventually found a tutorial project for traversing a sphere but even with that, many hours were spent trying to code the characters so they would continually FACE tangent to the ball. That poor disco-Stu face-planted for far too long. Even then, the code was not completely understood. This led to other issues including floaty controls, and arbitrary limits to character speed. Caution to anyone lifting code from the internet; you’ll probably spend more time deciphering and debugging than intended.

In that vein, the player could gain a boost of hippie speed with a power-up and all was good. Yet, by stacking the bonus, the gravity code was unable to keep the player grounded, and they flew to oblivion! Make sure your physics engine agrees with your design choices. We chose to RESET the power-up time on collection and prevent stacking when doing power-up collection of the same type.

Our initial version only had hardcoded power-up positions, which was very lame, and unbalanced. Building random power-ups seemed very difficult at first glance. Luckily, they were accomplished post-jam by using the built-in Unity function (Random.onUnitSphere) which made the task trivial. Those Unity programming Gurus had done the hard part for us. The function grabs a random point on the surface of a spherical volume, which coincidentally, is exactly what I want for our set radius plating field.

At the time, I was absolutely flummoxed by Unity’s collision detection. The player touching the tiles actually changed their color?! Since they were all under one modeled object to my untrained eye, where was the code working? Going back today, I can tell the tiles were somehow all separated into their own GameObjects with an attached script that stored which player the tile belonged. A global method then progressed through to acquire the current team ownership count each tick. A more efficient method in the future might be to only trigger the counting code when a tile is changed color.

3D and Animation:

Considering I had never worked with 3D before, I was appreciative that we had a skilled 3D artist to model, and animate the characters. Exporting in fbx, Unity was able to read the animations from the artist’s program, and was largely painless to add. I would advise teams to ensure their pipeline is compatible with a single model first, even during a game-jam crunch before investing too much effort into their creations.

For the initial submit, the 3D animations were broken. While a certain amount of jank is dank and could be mistaken for disco groove, those fly moves were too cool for school. Two animations could “play” at the same time, with only one taking priority. The longer animation would jump the rig to its shape after the shorter one elapsed. Since the animations were directly started by a player’s button press, animations would just cut to the next one at the player’s whim. The solution for the post-jam was animation tweening. One animation would have priority over the others, which would interpolate the character’s rig to merge with it if interrupting a lower priority one. This helped for shooting or crouching which must take priority over walking at any possible stride point.

An often overlooked feature of using the animations through Unity was it allowed for selectively enabling and disabling the hitbox on the player when a certain key frame of the animation was reached. This allowed for projectile dodging on a visually pleasing frame of the animation only. This is a truly useful and underappreciated feature in Unity as it allows easy way of timing events without having to run asynchronous co-routines.

Misc:

For those in the audience who have run into unexpected game lag, I have one function for you; Debug.Log. At one point in development, the code to tween colors on the disco dance floor was causing the game to LAG considerably. Why though? Debug.Log my friend. Writing anything to the Debug each frame TANKED the frame rate to the single digits.

What is a class? Hell if I knew when I started. Yet, with a little practice, the benefits became instantly clear! The player uses a class, and with some subtle tape and bandages, I was able to copy it, and assign controller function to a 2nd player in less than a couple hours. All the logic that constrains player 1, such as reacting to gravity and power-ups, applies to player 2. Local-Multiplayer! Imagine trying to write all the interactions for every object specifically for that second, or even a third player by hand? Insane!

Special shout out to one team member, who knows who they are. I would go to bed one day with a bunch of broken wanton features, and this team member would have taken them 90% to completion. He was the one that allowed finishing on time. I would suggest all beginners during a hackathon have one veteran in their ranks that can pull up the slack, and act as a mentor. Don’t have them do everything, but instead assist when they see the project flailing.

The music was shamelessly stolen from Time Splitters: Future Perfect, amongst more recognizable sources. I wasn’t pleased, but considering it was made for a Game Jam originally, and not a commercial product, it was never changed. If any of the music owners wish for me to remove the game download, I’ll do so immediately.

Bugs:

Finally, considering the age of the game, lack of team members, and code-breaking updates to Unity since, there is little desire to fix existing bugs. Here are some that remain:

1. The player can hit a power-up with their projectile and have it still count as collected. While an interesting mechanic from a strategic standpoint, this was not as intended. All except one power up was fixed for this bug.

2. The player can spin at infinite speed by holding their left or right key. I knew of this, yet left it because I found it funny with no tactical purpose. However, in a finished product it appears sloppy and accidental to casual observers.

3. I forgot to add an application exit command, so CTRL-ALT-DELETE is your friend…

Downloads

Below you can find the download for the initial submit to the week-long game jam, and the 2-month fix-up Final release. Please take a look at both to see how extra polish can completely change the feel on a project.

Week-Long Game Jam Build:
http://biasedvideogamerblog.com/local--files/blog:danger-at-the-disco-post-mortem/Danger%20At%20the%20Disco%20%28End%20of%20Game%20Jam%20Week%29.zip

Two Month Cleanup Build:
http://biasedvideogamerblog.com/local--files/blog:danger-at-the-disco-post-mortem/Danger%20at%20the%20Disco%20v21.zip

by Zott820

Rare has finally revealed video footage and interviews with developers of the early Banjo Kazooie prototype, Project Dream. If you don't know, I'm a huge Banjo Kazooie fan like most N64 owners and was blown away by the gameplay when it was released. Get an inside look at the development cycle and how a bear and bird became the heroes:

Project Dream's started off with a boy Edson and his dog Dinger as they explored the land of giants. There were pirates too as the main villians! As Rare moved from the SNES to the N64, they abandoned their isometric game engine for 3D and changed the tone of the game be more like Donkey Kong Country. When Super Mario 64 was released, it radically changed their direction from the sidescroller camera view to full on 3D adventure/platformer.

Rare made the right move to emulate the Super Mario 64 world and gameplay elements. I wouldn't expect Rare to be able to be create a test 3D map within a week of Mario 64 coming out. 16 months later, they released the finished game Banjo Kazooie. It looks a heck of a lot different from their very early prototype. I'm glad they changed the style from the boy and dog cliche and created truly memorable characters, platforming and dialogue.

I'll end with Rare's video on the making of Banjo Tooie that's also worth a watch for their insight into Bottle's Revenge and other development changes:

--

by BlueZero

Travel back to the year 1994. The video game and entertainment world is gearing up for the future of 3D games. I had gotten into gaming on my family’s Macintosh computer and simulation games are taking the world by storm. The extremely addicting Roller Coaster Tycoon is 5 years away and before that game consumed my life, Theme Park from Bullfrog Productions was my first theme park sim:

Story:
A super bored kid in the UK summons the Theme Park Advisor who abducts the family and teleports them into the theme park world. Do you have what it takes to build and run the world’s theme parks?

Imagine watching the intro video with the understanding that Toy Story was at least a year away. Yes, this intro CG was impressive for the time. Oh and voice acting in the intro CG was also rare for the time.

Gameplay:

The gameplay consists of building walkways, rides, stores and park decorations to build your park. You start by building simple rides like the bouncy castle (which always likes to explode) and the spinning tea cups.
You’ll want to hire staff entertainers to keep them happy, mechanics t o repair the rides and handmen to clean the paths. Security guards are less important and are really only necessary when the local gang rides up on motorcycles (vroom vrooooom) to harass park guests, beat up entertainers and actually make rides explode (!).

Pro-tip: set the Handyman patrol route. Build put food/drink stalls in only one section of your park and use one-way roads so trash doesn’t spread all throughout your park.

Building a Better Ride
Once you’ve invested in your R&D (hopefully in new rides or shops), you can build the much more exciting roller coasters and water tubing rides. For these, you lay out the track and connect it to the starting entrance. If you are like me, these are the rides to extend throughout your park and make them super long and super exciting.

Making Money
You have to content with keeping your guests happy while you extort as much cash from them as you can. My first goal was to build a coffee shop at the front entrance, crank up the caffeine level so the guests would run through the park, spending money even faster. The “test of skill” shops are also easy to set the chance of winning very low and set a high prize value to lure in costumers. You know, just how it’s done at the carnivals.

Like all real theme parks, you will want to force guests to walk past all the stores, shops and money making attractions to get to the rides. If any guest is leaving with money in their pocket, you are doing it wrong. Add one way roads so you control the flow of guest traffic .

Decorating Your Park:
What’s smellier: the Outhouse or the smell of the Strong man?

There is no right answer. For me, it was a fun milestone to research the park improvements and unlock the Super-Toilet. The Spooky tree was also my favorite because it looks so out of place in the game with only two Halloween themed rides.

Decorations improve guest happiness and factor into your overall theme park ranking. Compared with researching rides and shops, it’s usually my third level research goal.

“Full Sim” Difficulty:
At the Full Sim level, you have to negotiate staff wages, contend with company share prices and deal with the store warehouse inventory. If you fail to negotiate with your staff, they go on strike in front of your park. Pro-tip: worry about the mechanics, so pick one up and place him back inside the park and he will go back to work for a while.
Growing up, I didn’t understand the company stock aspect. As an adult, the screen is still confusing and it’s not apparent how much dividend you will get from rival companies.

Shop and store inventory must be replenished with your warehouse inventory. For me as a kid, the warehouse store inventory actually got overwhelming with my park had so many stores and my inventory would be instantly depleted. I literally would have to play the entire game in this mode and click new shipments every few seconds. I guess I never upgraded my warehouse space!

Mac Game Bug?:
The way the game is programmed, after so many years of in-game time, you park visitors will always plummet down to zero. This seemed to be independent of happiness level, ticket prices and the quality of the park. I could make the ticket prices free and no one would show up. There’s nothing so baffling as having an decked out park and there is no one arriving on a Titanic sized bus.

Playing Theme Park on PC for this review, I didn’t run into the park guest bug. Changing the park admission price did impact guest attendance but it was possible to reduce prices and see the attendance increase again. Is this something that only affects the Mac version?

DS Version
The DS version was developed by EA and was released in 2007. The game added new advisors like a young girl, business woman and young man. As expected, there was touch screen controls that made it easy to jump through the many menus. The classic formula hasn’t changed and there are minor graphical updates for the DS platform.

Wrap Up:
Theme Park is still a lot of fun to play today for someone who grew up playing it. If this were your first time playing, prepare yourself for certain archaic designs like no camera rotation and limited ride customization. So check it out and see if it grows on you.

Images captured on PC using DOS Box

by BlueZero

I jumped on the Battlefield 4 PC bandwagon quite late this year. EA’s Origin sale lured me in with the promise of the Premium version for around $25. As a super-fan of Battlefield 2 and an experienced soldier in Battlefield 3, I knew this was my chance to play the latest version since I had played it at E3 and parachuted off that crumbling building. I give you my thoughts after playing over 50 hours in the multiplayer experience:

Gameplay:

If you’ve played Battlefield 2 or 3 before, you will feel right at home. EA has balanced the overpowered jets and helicopters from the past version. The mortar and grenades have also been nerfed, so players actually get a chance to use guns to take on the other team.

Commander mode makes a return and the changes are for the better. Unfortunately you can’t drop jeeps on enemy snipers anymore or use artillery. Instead you get to command a cruise missile or bomber. I feel a good commander is much less important to turning the tide of battle and it’s much more difficult to score points using only scans, missile/bomber, Evac, and squad orders.

Squadplay has become ever integral to dominating the battlefield. Squads provide portable spawn points and tons of extra points for squad actions like healing, repairing and support. My pro-tip, always be in a squad and switch often if there isn’t a good spawn point. Only if you are a lone wolf sniper, don’t join a squad because you don’t need teammates spawning next to you and giving away your position.

Best Moments in the Game:

• Satisfaction of planned C4 ambushes against your enemies
• When you driving a tank and just narrowly avoid a cruise missile
• Stealing a tank while the enemy jumped out to repair it
• Siege of Shanghai Building Crumbling “Levolution”
• Pistol gameplay

Unlock Hell/Heaven:

If you just started playing, you are severely hindered by the starting guns and the lack of unlocks. I remember being dominated by other players at the start. Thus the first goal is to slog through grinding to open up options to the better guns like MP7, G18 and actual sniper rifle scopes higher than 1x. The worst are the vehicle unlocks. You will need to co-pilot a lot of tanks, helicopters and Infantry Fighting Vehicles to slowly unlock the required unlocks like Active Protection and missiles. I had to give up on jets because I’m getting pity points against enemy units. At least this time they gave jets the initial loadout of heatseeking missiles unlike Battlefield 3 where you started with only the minigun and no flares! Good luck leveling up the jet unlocks there!

If you love unlocking items, then you will have a great time. There are so many things to unlock, you can spend hundreds of hours and likely get 75% completion. You will likely choose your favorite gun and keep it. The current system penalizes you for trying out a variety of weapons.

Battlepacks:

Battlepacks are awarded for leveling your character, accomplishing missions and by purchase. They unlock random items including very vital scope and weapon attachments, customization options and experience boosts. Battlepacks unlock necessary accessories required to compete at the high level play against opponents.
I give EA props for addressing the concern that players can pay to win in their games with the random contents of the Battlepacks. If you were to throw down money for battlepacks, you would likely get nothing useful. For example with battlepacks I’ve been awarded for leveling up, I’ve gotten accessories for guns that I haven’t even unlocked yet!

Lasting Impressions:

Contrary to my gripes above, I do have a lot of fun playing Battlefield 4 and that’s what matters. Tank gameplay is the best I’ve ever played. Helicopter controls make sense. Jet fighting is way out of my league. Capturing control point flags is still wonderfully exhilarating. Enjoy the fun on the battlefield, at least until the Battlefield in 2016 is released.

by BlueZero

I've finally gotten around to playing Assassin's Creed: Unity on PC after hearing so much about the game breaking bugs. I'm currently playing through a lot of the single player and want to try out more of the co-op. Since there aren't that many people playing online anymore, I turn to the Internet to find more people interested in tackling the cooperative missions in our club Ascension:

Is anyone interested in joining our club to play some online coop? If you haven't joined the club yet, we've got plenty of room currently. We'll auto-accept all new people until it gets full. Join us, play missions and ascend in riches!

by BlueZero

E3 just ended and we were there taking in all the new video game sights and sounds. You’ve already heard about the big budget titles that dominated the show floor. One title I wasn’t expecting to see at E3 this year was the new King's Quest game from Sierra/Activision and developed by The Odd Gentlemen.

Hidden in the Microsoft area next to the Halo 5 Warzone line, there were two kiosks for Kings Quest. I was super surprised to see the game and chatted with the staff in Sierra t-shirts.

From what I’ve learned about the game’s story and the trailer, King Graham is telling his grandchildren his story from when he was a young adventurer prior to being a king and a knight in King's Quest I. Here, Graham has heard about Daventry recruiting new knights, and he has traveled there to enlist. Since it’s King Graham retelling his story, there is plenty of humorous dialogue and terrible puns about trees (bored, timber, ect.) There are definitely a lot more liberties taken to have fun with his character, and it works really well.

The gameplay is more modern and streamlined similar to how Telltale Games makes their games like Wolf Among Us. There aren’t any more typing simple sentences like KQ 1-4 or clicking everywhere like KQ 5 – 7. It’s more streamlined like KQVII’s interface. Graham can click on points on interest in the world to interact/talk/pickup like the more recent games. He still has an inventory screen where you can puzzle solve with items.

I had to budget my time because I could have easily spent all day playing the show floor demo. I found an axe (used responsibly of course) and snuck Graham over the outer wall into Daventry to “borrow” a round table to repair a broken merchant’s caravan. We actually see Graham wave his cape over the table and see it disappear into his inventory. In a bakery shop, Graham was able to restrain from buying and eating what I’m sure would be a game-breaking pie like in King's Quest V.

The new episode King's Quest game is coming out in July. I’ll be buying it for the nostalgia mixed with poking fun at the characters. Share your thoughts on the game in the comments and how you feel about the new series.

Photos

by BlueZero

If you haven’t heard, Playstation Home is going to be closing its doors in March. As a fan since it launched in 2008, join me as I take a look back on the Home experience as it has evolved over the years.

The Beginning
At the beginning of Home, it was the golden age for trolls and trolling other people. I recall a time where voice chat between strangers was enabled by default and it was difficult to mute annoying, random people. “Quincying” was a very popular activity. It was where an attractive woman avatar danced, attracted a crowd of interested guys and then surprised them by transforming into an “ugly” avatar with hilarious results. Honesty there were very few activities in Home at that point in time so Quincying was usually the most fun you could have aside from waiting forever at the bowling alley. Read Joystiq's guide on how to Quincy for even more insight.

The most exciting E3 pitch of being able to visit your trophy room unfortunately never happened. Probably a good thing Home isn’t trying to render my 2000+ trophies. Instead, we did get the virtual E3 experience for a few years, letting people who would never be able to attend E3 the chance to see what the Sony booths and kiosks looked like.

Sodium 1.0 was the first world that felt developed with care and thought. It was smart to allow people to play the first few levels of the Salt Shooter to get hooked and pay for the full game. This area was the start of me getting addicted to the PS Home to complete challenges.

The Development of Substantial Content

A couple years pass and Sony starts fleshing out the Home experience with more areas. They build out the “Hub” with more shopping floors, downtown areas like the Sportswalk, Adventure District and more. They added the ability to get in line for activities like bowling.

One of my favorite additions to Home was the Quest and the Activity Boards where users could get rewards for participating. The Christmas quests took me a couple days to complete and introduced companion avatars like pets for the first time.

I played the Mercia: Fractured Realms and it showed the possibilities of being able to play a fully fleshed out adventure game in Home. Upon entering the world, your character equipped basic weapons and armor, could perform magic spells and there were unique leveling up through tracked experience of enemies defeated. While it was sometime glitch, I had a good time maxing out my character.

Sony introduced the Club x7 and thanks to PS Plus, I got to see how they further segmented their small Home audience into the haves and the have-nots. No one upstairs was ever playing the FLIRT minigame and even fewer did anything of note. Usually there were more Club x7 NPC girls walking around than actual people. Also there was an even more exclusive hottub area I never could enter and never saw anyone in there. I will say the membership was worth the free items every week for Home fans like myself.

The Sunset
The good upshot about Sony shutting down PS Home is it will save me many hours spent waiting for areas to load or transactions to complete. The long loading times across the board were definitely the worst part.
When the doors close, we will be losing unique user interactions and the world built over the years. The silly, bizarre and weird outfits and characters were the high point of the service for me.

Give PS Home one last visit and experience the different game worlds before they are gone. For me, it’s been a bittersweet experience.

by BlueZero

One of our more popular articles here at BiasedVGBlog is our cartridge table of N64 cartridge weights. Yet, when I first put the data together, I had at my disposal a simple letter scale with limited precision, and a whole lot of eyeballing. Unsatisfied with the results, I decided to reopen the case, with a new and improved digital scale!

The new scale brings the overall precision of the measurements from ~0.3 oz to ~0.007oz, a hefty improvement. I compared the new and old sets and since I did a great job before, there was only a ~2.8% average difference. In addition, I have added some interesting comparative charts, fixed some of the naming mistakes, and changed the data columns. Please enjoy below!

Charts:

Since I’m a fan of using grams for my measurement scale, and recorded the data in grams, these charts will be in grams.

Click images to enlarge:

Interestingly, some games such as Super Smash Bros and Harvest Moon were inexplicably heavy despite having relatively tame ROM sizes, and lacking features that would require special chips. Overall, the cartridge's weight do not appear related to their ROM size nor release date.

Tables:

For a sortable Google Doc version which includes some additional criteria, please visit the following link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16evhDfliCcyp1aF4dVNxfCSAxp4VgBqqpv3oxfiSyhI

Accessories

by Zott820

Welcome to the official Day 1 of E3 2014. It’s Christmas Day for video gamers out there. This is the time period where developers unleash the torrent on projects they had to keep secret and tease everyone with tantalizing details. So buckle up and allow me to list my favorite five favorite announcements unveiled at E3 this year.

I am luckily not among all the masses at the Los Angeles Convention Center this year. I get to enjoy the constant flood of video, screenshots and developer interviews from behind a keyboard.

New Zelda Game on WiiU

A new Zelda game has been announced and it’s “open world”. This is all the Nintendo fans need to go into a year-long coma where they curl up with their Link blanket (or body pillow) and suck on their triforce pacifiers.

I’m okay with the graphical style being more similar to Skyward Sword. Unlike Space World 2000 where there was a bait and switch to the cell-shaded Toon Link, I wasn’t expecting the E3 2013 realistic Link to stick around. Nintendo doesn’t like realistic graphics because realism doesn’t match their usual whimsical use of color and music.

LittleBigPlanet3 on PS4

The biggest impact for me is they showed off new characters in the Sackthing universe that have unique traits. Plus the millions of user created levels are available at launch. The trailer makes it appear that LittleBigPlanet 3 has more than 3 planes of movement.
Is this game enough to get me to buy a PS4? Probably not yet.

Halo Collection on Xbox One

Okay so the Halo Collection is a mixed bag because I had a ton of fun playing the earlier games but I really shouldn’t go back and replay them again. The upside is that Halo fans get revived multiplayer for expired Live servers for Halo 1 and 2.

Pacman in Smash Brothers WiiU

Nintendo announced a new character as part of their Smash Brothers WiiU tournament at Nokia Theatre. Like the major video game outlets have stated, adding Pac Man revives the classic nostalgic for fanboys between fans for Sonic, Mario, Mega Man. Pac Man’s moveset is very reminiscent of Game and Watch with his A-Down ghosts appearing similar to the double potholes. Pac Man’s retro item moves appear to be very randomly powerful like G&W’s Judgment move. See Pac Man's reveal trailer below:

The Donuts in Battlefield Hardline

Now for the unexpected surprise. Battlefield Hardline reminds me a little of Pay Day 2 kicked up to the level of Battlefield explosions and action set pieces. While I was slightly interested in the gameplay demo of “cops vs. robbers, ” it was the end of the trailer that made me laugh out loud (6:15).

What’s your favorite reveal or announcement at E3 so far? I want to know what you think since we all have our biased opinions.

by BlueZero

In November 2013, GitHub had their second annual Game Jam. The theme was “change”, and over 80 entries were submitted. I worked with a team on the game “Turkey Cooking Simulator”.

The contest challenge can be viewed here: https://github.com/blog/1674-github-game-off-ii

A list of all entries can be found here: http://petarov.github.io/ggo13-viewer/

The winners of the Game Jam can be viewed here: https://github.com/blog/1731-github-game-off-ii-winners

Now that the background is out of the way, let’s discuss. I was very disappointed by how GitHub handled the winners of this Jam. In my experience, Jam Winners have descriptions by the judges of what made those particular games stand out among the crowd. Instead GitHub wrote a listless description of what the game IS, a description that I could sooner find from the game’s readme or by taking 5 seconds to play the game.

In addition, having played nearly all the games before the winners were announced, I would have to say I vehemently disagree with the decisions. Games that I think deserved the crown were nowhere to be found, while some mediocre games made it to the top. In the essence of self-improvement, I am going to pick out a few games and post them below, as well as doing what the judges should have done; give a brief description of what went right, what went wrong, and any glitches found so that future revisions of the game can benefit from third party criticism.

Biased Blog Winners:

1.

Title: Color Quest

What Went Right: Addicting gameplay, further exemplified by the addition of the store. I died, and said “Oh Well”, but then found out that there was a store. OH NO! Now I’m going to have to play forever to unlock all the items. Collectable MegaPixels help give the player that extra bit of carrot to try dangerous maneuvers. The addition of the three power-up types mean that players can determine their own strategy of play, and which pixels they prefer to seek. This game would be ideal for the mobile market, especially given its orientation and screen ratio. Game feels very finished, with boost effects, physics, particles and unique sound cues.

Glitches: After reviving there was a block directly behind and directly in front of the player. The game refused to resume and the player couldn’t move. It was not frozen however, as the on-screen gems/pixels and music continued to play.

2.

Title: The Wizard Hierarchy of Needs

What Went Right: Including a reference to Gauntlet was an obvious and appreciated move. Hits a high note on exposition; most of the instructions can be boiled down to a few words, which the player then uses to solve the puzzle. Zany and chuckle-worthy puzzles, such as being turned into an inanimate object and trying to hide a dead body. Good design economy; doesn’t include more frills than it needs to succeed.

3.

Title: DungeonFall

What Went Right: Maybe this concept has been done many times, but I haven’t seen before. Gameplay felt highly original. Different enemies to fight, and power-ups to build towards kept the gameplay interesting. Plus, completely player designed dungeons means that players decide how easy and hard the levels are. (I think you deserve no potions little dungeon guy!)

What Went Wrong: As the author mentions on his website, the game is lacking sound. More documentation that describes the effects of all the items would help a lot. It isn’t always intuitive and clear where the dungeon crawler is going to move next.

4.

Title: CHANG$

General Comments: It has been two Game Jam’s now where the topic has been ‘change’. I’m sure there isn’t one team involved that hasn’t thought about the very literally interpretation of change with financial dollars. Yet, so far, CHANG$ is the only one I’ve seen, out of probably 100 entries that has been so brazen as to actually go for it. Maybe all the other teams figure the other guy is going to do it literal and thusly, avoid it.

What Went Right: Exactly as imagined, the player is given money to make change with, and an amount to change. Viola! Having limited denominations spices up the action by encouraging the player to not use only familiar coinage. (Example: All Pennies) Keyboard hotkeys ensure quick response times for those who get really proficient. Nice training tool opportunity.

What Went Wrong: The GitHub branding limits some of the off-site appeal. Chiptune music could have been better. I was expecting grocery store/elevator music. Of course, the grocery music would have to get intense! ROCK SOLOOOOOOO! I would argue that restocking bills shouldn’t use time, but instead require a recharging period until they are available again.

Glitches: When some coinage is out, IE no pennies, the player can click on the bill directly above the out-of-stock coin to instantly refill it.

5.

Title: Kitten Beats Depression

What Went Right: Let’s be honest here. No game that heavily advocates *spoiler* had a chance of winning the GitHub Game Jam Competition. However, Biased Blog has no company morals holding it back.

Kitten Beats Depression uses the traditional medium of a side-scrolling platformer well. For example, at the first gap, players have the intrinsic instinct to jump, and blam, Kitten Beats Depression knows how to respond to make the player emotionally invested. “Awww poor kitten”

When the first spoiler showed up, I was paralyzed with laughter for nearly a minute. Such a twist!

What Went Wrong: There isn’t much content, but at the same time, once the joke is played out, there wasn’t much the developers could add. (Make it more morbid I suppose).

Glitches: Some of the music cues seem to activate too late.

Honorable Mentions (No Particular Order):

Title: Super Fantasy Queue

General Comments: The 8-bit art is very plentiful and nice for this game. That being said, it comes from an art pack which I feel spiritually takes away from the principle of a Game Jam. Why am I pickier about art than music/sounds? Well, the barrier to making any kind of music on a computer tends to be higher than just opening Paint and drawing something. Also, it is easier to re-appropriate music, say a classical piece, towards any purpose, vs. art which is very distinct and noticeable. Visual Culture.

What Went Right: Original idea. Running into enemies to defeat them is an effective battle simplification. Unique final battle dialogue after losing once is a nice treat to prevent re-reading repetitious dialogue.

What Went Wrong: Cashier attributes could have had more presence.

Glitches: When getting in line respectfully, enemies that are walking to join that line treat you like you cut them, even though they are 2+ tiles away.

Title: Change the Lightbulb

General Comments: Same as for Super Fantasy Queue; I would have preferred self-created art rather than an art pack.

What Went Right: Tongue in cheek humor from ‘facilitation’ payments to satire of the complex nature of computer password requirements. Well-written E-mails. Cute and clean vectorized art - helps give comic distance. Game saves progress in browser, for coming back to later. Not completely linear – can choose among two levels to continue progress. Death isn’t punishing- softens the unpredictable nature of object physics.

What Went Wrong: GUI for the E-mail program is messy – Needs better borders and text alignment. Telekinesis aura is not visible enough. Difficult to tell when objects, such as blocks, are within the sphere of manipulation and therefore moveable. Shift Key being the telekinesis hold feels awkward. Would have preferred objects be continually held as long as within the sphere of influence. Either that or a toggleable hold command. Needs background music.

Glitches: Player can throw boxes out of reach and become stuck. No level reset button. (Luckily, the game saves browser progress, so limited loss to refresh)

Title: Panic Backlog

What Went Right: I enjoyed this game, maybe because giving orders as a manager makes me feel powerful. “What’s that Bob? You don’t like Firefox programming? Well have a 6-star CSS!” :P If the game was a bit more frantic for task management, it could be super addictive.

What Went Wrong: The music is not long enough; it repeats way too often with a noticeable loop. GUI should include description of power-ups without having to use mouse-over text. (Imagine trying to play it on a mobile device/ignorant uses who don’t understand that mechanic) I know there is some satire here, but pausing should be allowed. I don’t like when games advertise company services in-game.

Title: Flows

What Went Right: I don’t care if it is super simple, this game made me feel smart. Playing with the particles, even if it isn’t leading to a solution, is a treat.

What Went Wrong: Gray Orbs depicting flow should instead be arrows. Would do well with a progress bar on the portals until ‘full’, to give more precise player feedback rather than color shades. More puzzles and sound, I’m thinking color mixing mechanics, like green from blue and yellow.

Title: Corruption

What Went Right: Civilization-esque game of building up resources to conquer a foe is enjoyable. Catchy music. Very engaging and intense, requires lots of micro management. Different varieties of sustainable resources means the player can strategically seek out high yield hexes.

What Went Wrong: Repair and building costs spiral out of control in the late game, which causes a collapsed economy, and eventually submittal to the corruption. Corruption spores feel cheap; Player deserves some kind of devastation attack as well. While documentation exists, the scope of this game severely requires a lot of trial and error to understand the mechanics. An in-game tutorial would have been greatly appreciated. Without it, the barrier to entry is incredibly steep.

Title: Turkey Cooking Simulator

General Comments: If you didn’t read the disclosure at the beginning, this is the game I worked on for the competition.

What Went Right: The game actually uses thermodynamic functions that correspond to a real turkey. So, in essence you could cook a virtual turkey while you cook a real turkey of equivalent weight then time one by the other. Buying things is fun. Stories from Grandpa. Simulation uses player’s computer clock time for the day-night cycle start point.

What Went Wrong: The game is boring. But that was the intent. See: Desert Bus. Needs an intense dose of gamification to keep it interesting. We were making art and gameplay in that direction but ran out of time to integrate it. Dialogue and some items were not designed around Casual mode.
Glitches: Lots of spelling and grammar mistakes. If you slow cook the turkey you can get a ‘fire’ core, yet no explosion animation. Makes sense…yet it doesn’t.

Others:

Title: The Frog Lifecycle

General Comments: I followed this game on Twitter during development and would have preferred more effort towards the fun tadpole stage than the addition of the annoying frog stage.

What Went Right: That country music got my head a waggling, and then the game basically played itself. Clean graphics.

What Went Wrong: Not enough food on screen at once. More food means more hectic in the player’s favor. Also helps mitigate food that spawns on the side where enemies just POP into you. Lily-pad jumping end-game is in-precise and infuriating. Can’t move diagonally.

Glitches: The frog can move opposite to its facing direction if both movement keys are pressed at once.

Title: Room for Change

What Went Right: Unique level manipulation gameplay. Preparing players for one of the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

What Went Wrong: This game just didn’t grab me, I can’t say precisely why. Other things to consider: Controls are a bit floaty. Spider enemies are annoying in the perspective they move. There’s a reason lots of Zelda games use floor shadows to show the position of hanging enemies.

Glitches: Changing rooms with spiders still alive inside can cause them to not update their position. IE, the top of their string will be showing because they are drawn too low.

Title: Changing of the Seasons

What Went Right: There is a nice skill gap. Players can pick up each nut and drop them in one by one, throw them in from across the map, or just stack nuts in a pile for the next round. Randomized branches for each game.

What Went Wrong: The game needs sound, as in crisp autumn leaves and crunchy bouncing acorns. The time limit given is too tight.

Glitches: Out of bound one time, but can’t recall how that happened.

Title: Psiral

What Went Right: Beautiful Art - Clean and vivid colors and shapes. Calming music. The status bar in the top right allows the player to know what is happening at a glance.

What Went Wrong: Super boring and drawn out gameplay, and not for satire like some of the other games. Allow me to pick out specific examples of where the game play went astray.

Firstly, it takes too long for each person’s turn to pass. If a block is changed by a spell for example, it takes about 1-2 additional seconds for the turn to end.

Secondly, each game is too lengthy. While the game may move quickly in the last few turns, the spiral nature of Psiral means it takes a long time approach the center. Additionally, the spiral makes it visually difficult to judge player rankings, meaning the ferocity of the race just isn’t there.

Thirdly, mana is a punishment not a reward. If I had to choose between moving the character and mana, I would choose movement every time. Rolling a three means that not only do I NOT get to move, but I can’t even use the mana I gain that turn. Since spells consume a turn as well, I better hope it stops them for at least 2 turns, because otherwise I probably would have been better off trying for movement.

My suggestion would be to strip mana from the dice and reward pure movement (except the skip-a-turn). Then take the many colored tiles on the board and reward mana for tiles of the player’s color that are passed. Landing on spots of the player’s color can reward double mana. Now instead of wanting to avoid rolling a three, it may be desired so one can not only move, but land on a colored square that will double their mana intake. Also, since the mana is flowing, but movement is much more common, players can use spells freely without fear of falling behind. Now they can slow the opponent on one turn with a spell, then speed ahead with pure movement on the next. They don’t face the risk of fluking on a mana roll.

Glitches: Players can click the CHANCE or SPELL button spots even the GUI is not present to make the clicking noise.

Title: Pakito in Tileland

What Went Right: Conceptually was a good idea, but it would seem 2D puzzles weren’t the way to do it. Tacos are delicious.

What Went Wrong: Many of the ‘puzzles’ can be passed by rapidly jamming the movement button. The changing of the colors doesn’t feel as rewarding as rapidly moving. Ditch the keys, and have the challenge be purely dodging and evading enemies for a real thrill.

Title: CH₃CH₂CH₂CH₂CH₃anges

What Went Right: Raising the water level and melting the ice caps was a bold mechanic.

What Went Wrong: Message was a bit too preachy. That point happened right around the presence of the first ice rectangle. Remedy: remove the water rising, keep the ice that does the same. Don’t have repeat functions. Easy to screw up and make the game unbeatable without realizing it until it is too late. (OMG Moral! Except, not great for gameplay) Controls are very fast and tight, too much so.

Glitches: While idle, character plays flinching animation.

Title: Swap

What Went Right: Allowing the player to skip any level with no penalty. Puzzle mechanics such as the sphere being able to pass through blocks when not controlled was interesting.

What Went Wrong: VERY surprised this game was a winner. Collision detection is fickle. Some of the puzzles require the player to precisely center the spheres within the grid. There should not be sphere seizures when hitting a wall, instead, the sphere should just stop. Recommended action: when the player touches a wall or transfers control away, center the sphere automatically in the center of the grid. Learning curve too steep, should rearrange levels to put death scenarios closer to the end. This way, players are rewarded when they beat thinking puzzles vs. reaction time puzzles. In essence, they can feel smart.

Glitches: You can skip the last stage and are stuck on “You Won” screen. Can’t ‘Space’ the dialogue box away.

Title: Dem Creepers

What Went Right: Blocking enemies with golem bodies. Walking through corpses slows down the player is a nice addition and strategic to boot.

What Went Wrong: Can’t fire the axes in any direction; I can’t think of a reason why axes should be limited to 45 degree axis. Enemies are kind of stupid navigating the golem blocks. Needs more enemy types to keep the gameplay fresh. Lag at round beginning on older computers when they try and compute all the decaying bodies changing.

Glitches: Golems that are partially off screen appear to disappear completely. Might as well always render all enemies no matter their position.

Title: Chromacore

What Went Right: The soundtrack is the ingredient that ties the game together. Similar to SoundShapes, the player collects the orbs along the path and adds to the musical score. Unlike a lot of side-running game’s I’ve seen. Checkpoints are included, providing progressive, vs. punishing gameplay.

What Went Wrong: The changing color is only loosely integrated. It should be progressive rather than jarringly sectional. Animations and controls are unresponsive. Falling down a pit undermines the illusion of walking on buildings, when you see the images cutout.

Glitches: During respawn, the music hitches and the player jumps around sporadically.

Title: Jekyll and Hyde Collide

General Comments: Jekyll and Hyde Collide is too close to Canabalt without enough evolutionary changes. It is almost Chromacore, except that had a musical draw and was more playable. The GitHub judges should have chosen one or the other for runner up.

Glitches: After double jumping as Jekyll then pressing the transform button, the player doesn’t transform into Hyde unless they hit the ground. That may be intended, but it leads to a lot of weird behaviors. After double jumping as Jekyll, the player can hit the button to transform into Hyde, then perform Hyde’s dash attack in the air despite the sprite being Jekyll. After dying as Hyde, the player can still jump and dash. As Jekyll, double jump, transform in air (no sprite change), then hit a pillar, the player will then transform into Hyde and die.

Title: 9 to 5

What Went Right: 9 to 5 gets just the right amount of satire in, from overfeeding and killing your goldfish to turning into a blood seeking wolf. (Wait what?)

What Went Wrong: Unfortunately there isn’t enough stuff to keep the game going. Each day is like the last (satire baby!), but even in those days, there aren’t enough ways to change the outcome. The objective of the werewolf stage is also vague. Object clicking with mouse needs to be touched up; either items need to have a larger hitbox, or be touchable farther from the player character.

Title: ChipChange

What Went Right: I enjoyed the subtle humor with the swearing symbols and the slightly sarcastic text.

What Went Wrong: Difficulty ramps up too quickly. Needs more levels that gradually introduce the lemming’s concept. In the level with the push-able block, it isn’t clear that you can push the block. More tutorials needed. When the counter says x0, then there should be no chips left, not 1 left.

Title: Chaos Slots

What Went Right: Epitomizes chaos. However…

What Went Wrong: WTH, what’s going on? Who am I? What am I doing? What’s this? How do I play? Why can’t I shoot? Why can I shoot? Questions, oh so many questions!

Title: Trans Cube

What Went Right: The pacing for the game was just right, from super easy to mind boggling. Not all solutions required concrete executions.

What Went Wrong: Stylistic decisions such as the blocks disappearing, instead of scrolling, off the sides annoyed me greatly. Also, the changing perspective of ALL the blocks when the player changes direction ruined more than one jump attempt, and is the single biggest annoyance. Very jarring and put me off from playing further.

Title: Contraspective

What Went Right: Running through the black and white pathway searching for the open door was intense with the breaking glass edging closer behind. The rotating room felt straight out of Willy Wonka. Arty style.

What Went Wrong: This ‘game’ is more an art piece than something you can really play. The directions for the rooms are vague and glitches impede progress.

Glitches: Items falling through the floor. Try and drop the watering can, picks up the flower pot automatically. Can’t drop both items, infinite item carry loop.

Title: Green Gauge

What Went Right: Land is randomly generated on each play through. Strategically placing buildings on the hexes is fun (Gotta avoid the global warming!) The programming for the placement is also smart in how it makes the multi-hex structures fit. Addicting to balance the various knobs controlling my plane t- Build one item, then forced to respond with another type to keep the planet going.

What Went Wrong: Vague documentation. No build order control; can’t prioritize important structures to be built. Can’t see building progress. Need power to build power plant? Wut? Can’t prioritize power usage -This means I can’t turn off a research lab or two to put power towards vital infrastructure. Forced to sell buildings I want in a moment. Built structures should not be a list; I don’t want to scroll long pages to find one item. Recommended to group items by type.

Glitches: Some of the music cues seem to activate too late.

Title: BYOBBM

General Comments: Everybody from YTMND's hayday has at least a some emotion that characterizes the Blue Ball Machine. For some it represents nostalgia, for others scorn. Upon playing this game, I immediately felt that tinge of familiarity, but with a twist. What is this? I can make my own?

What Went Right: The art is cute, and the first 8 widgets were fun to see how they reacted. The widget dropping interface works well. Being able to change the ball color is a clear advantage over the original BBM. Rainbows!

What Went Wrong: Not clear which direction the balls will move through the widgets without trial and error. Game does not allow have built in art creation tools. Being able to set the direction of balls moving through custom art widgets would have added a lot of long term appeal for casual players. Without tools, has a I-came-I-saw play depth. Also, this rendition, to my knowledge, lacks music. The breakfast machine music on the original BBM MADE it!

by Zott820

The biggest asset of the Xbox One is the integration of the Kinect camera into the core of the console. The new Kinect allows the console to recognize people’s facial expressions, body orientation, if they are engaged with the console (looking at the screen), heat levels and mood. Microsoft has the scary potential to gather a monumental amount of personal information with the Kinect while people are playing games, watching video and any activity that is going on in the room. What do you think of the privacy implications of the Xbox One?

It's In Your Games, Capturing Your Faces
Image the following scenario: You are playing Halo 5 with a controller like everyone currently plays Halo. You start the game and watch the emotional opening cut-scene where the Covenant are deleting the backups of Cortana and she is pleading for her life. While you are engrossed in this cutscene you frown and grit your teeth in anger. The Kinect has been documenting your reactions and is anonymously sending this information back to Microsoft. Microsoft aggregates the Kinect information from tens of thousands of players and can produce specific data like 65% of players were upset/angry during this opening cutscene and watched the screen on average for 90% during it. The average person’s face temperature was 5 degrees hotter and players looked at their TV screen 30% during the cutscene. The Xbox One is not only capturing this information from players holding the controller, it also is documenting anyone it can detect in the room and their behavior.

Let’s take Kinect to the inevitable, invaluable future advertising realm where we will pretend our blog is advertising on Microsoft’s Xbox One. An ad for Biased Gamer pops up while you are on the Xbox Dashboard. Our charming ad makes you laugh 15 seconds into the video. 25 seconds into the ad, your friend starts talking to you and you look at her.
Here’s what the Kinect knows about you relative to our pretend ad: The Kinect has precise head tracking data of all people watching the ad and can associate you with your gamertag because you are signed in and holding the first controller. Kinect knows and recorded the tracking data of your facial expressions during the entirety of the ad including that you were happy 15 seconds into the ad. At 25 seconds into the ad, the Kinect read your head orientation wasn’t pointed at the TV (not engaged) and sees your smile as you look at another person in the room (your girlfriend) for the remainder of the ad.
Microsoft could send us, the advertiser in this example, extremely detailed statistics from huge population samples who saw our ad to specific regions of the country. If the data is broken down to the individual level, we would know far more information that we would know what to do with.

I’ll end by sharing a real life example using the girlfriend from the example above. Imagine she has never played your Xbox One or even picked up a controller. The first time she enters your living room and the Xbox One recognizes a new person has entered, it uses facial recognition to start building her profile. As long as the Xbox One is on, it can see where she is in the room and that she is coming over usually on Fridays and Saturdays. It knows the average temperature of her face, her average expression, heart rate, orientation, muscle movements, the amount of time she is looking at the TV screen, if she is talking and so many other things the Kinect is tracking that we are not aware.

If you think Facebook is creepy, Xbox One has it beat so many times over since it is built to recognizes your face and your voice at all times. I’m paranoid as it is in the digital era of sharing everything so I am not anticipating to be buying the Xbox One. I’ll just go add another layer of duct tape to cover my webcam and I’ll stick to my last generation console for the time being.

by BlueZero

If you played Grand Theft Auto IV years ago, you would have been introduced to Roman Bellic, the cousin of the main character Niko Bellic. Do you remember know how excited he was when Niko stepped off the boat at the beginning of the game? Let's explore the annoying world of Roman Bellic's "Roman-isms":

"Niko, my cousin. Do you want to go bowling?"

"I'm a little busy right now Roman…"

Repeat that conversation for the many hours of Grand Theft Auto IV and relive the early two thousands when people first starting using cell phones. "I'm going to call you just because I can call you. Hey Ma, I'm right next to you talking to you on this new cell phone technology."

The worst part of the cell phone gameplay mechanic is when you decline the invitation or the call is interrupted by real world events like getting ejected from the windshield, your relationship score goes down with the character. I wouldn't care except I was getting so many calls from Roman that his relationship score was suffering from all the rejections. When I would go to all the work to actually accept an invitation and completed it, the score would barely increase.

Enjoy this fan video that YouTuber miracleofsound created parodying the constant badgering of Roman:

Rockstar is either luckily brilliant or very lucky that they have crafted a love/hate relationship with Roman. When Roman calls calls to ask your character to go out drinking, it's hilarious to see Niko and Roman's drunk walking. Yet going on most other adventures with Roman is extremely boring and lackluster. No wonder he has no friends, he owes everyone money from going out too often to clubs, bars, fast food restaurants, ect. Let's hope that GTAV will remedy the cell phone calls happening every few minutes.

by BlueZero

I do not regret playing Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. The 4 hours spent interacting with its world affirmed the pitfalls of touch-centric mobile applications being ported to non-touch, non-mobile platforms. From here on, I will refer to this game title as "Sworcery" to save breath. (And yes, that is the proper spelling. Sworcery: the most magical, mystical, branch of sorcery.)

Controls:

Sworcery is a mobile game first and a PC game second. The most obvious of concessions for today's smart phones result from the limited buttons available. In targeting those platforms, game mechanics must be designed to be accessible by tapping the screen in some way. For this PC release, as most computers are not yet touch sensitive, all aspects, from combat to GUI navigation, are controllable solely using the mouse, taking over the role of index finger, pinky, or fat thumb. Where traditionally buttons would be used for character movement, holding down the mouse on a path instead guides the character. While it is fanciful on a PC to play an entirely with a mouse, with some nostalgia to the King's Quest games of yore, there is too much dependence on tiresome 'tap and hold' and 'drag' mechanics, where a button equivalent would have more than sufficed. Sadly, with few exceptions, the developers don't give the option to control with buttons: Moving the character not being one. The tactile benefit from touching the game objects is also lost in translation to a mouse. Having touching controls is ok on a touchpad where I can precisely rub a spot, but it just feels tedious using the hand-to-mouse-to-screen channel.

Puzzles:

Puzzles were an unsatisfying affair. Upon coming to a puzzle, I knew it had to do something with touch, but what was I supposed to tap/click? In most cases, it meant tapping objects in a certain order, from large to small, or rubbing certain onscreen objects. For the easiest puzzles, the game highlighted the objects to tap, but more often that I would have liked, finding how to start a puzzle required randomly clicking items on the screen until something reacted, both not requiring any thought. Once the gist of the puzzle was known, determining the solution was the other half of the battle. At the worst of times, when I had 'beaten' the puzzle, I wasn't sure what method I had followed to solve it. Consequently, stumbling upon solutions was harrowing, not enticing, and I found ultimately all puzzles were time-wasting burdens against continuing the story.

Combat:
Maybe combat can make up for the deficiencies of puzzles? Unfortunately, no. Combat is a passive dance between attack and defend commands. The enemy decides its move, and the player responds. The issue is that battles are engaged at an angle of nearly 45° with 2D sprites. Strict rebuttal timing is everything and the in-range engagement zone being partially obscured by the hero's own body hinders this. The player's depth perception of incoming attacks is also tested at that combat perspective inserting a difficulty that is undeserved for the adventure game. Furthermore, the combat proves inconsistent as determining what attacks must be countered via shield or sword is a guess and check effort. On a positive note, the passive response combat allows for great integration with audio cues and the background track. While the visual gives poor timing, the audio cue can be used instead.

Moon Cycle:

Not everything was a casualty of mobility. One of the more original elements of Sworcery is its dependence on the cycles of the moon. Gaining access to the third and forth chapters requires waiting for either a full moon or dark moon, in real time. REAL TIME?! Yes. As a mobile game, the developers expect the player to stop, take a break, get out of work one evening to notice a full moon, then begin to play anew. Compounding this design aspiration was the addition of a plot summary upon starting the next chapter: The game's narrative character, whose cigar smoking antics gave the same vibe of Mass Effect 2's Illusive Man, regales the story up to that point. As a cool addition, the game tracks past conversations and catalogues them according to the moon cycle they were received.

To be honest, I feel the moon breakup is another problem with the PC version. I can only comment on my own experience, but as a PC gamer, I typically sit down to play a game and devote a block of time for that purpose. So when booting Sworcery, I was planning to play until I needed to stop. Upon reaching to the moon cycle barrier, I immediately searched for a workaround. The in-game megatome stated 8 days until the next moon cycle, but screw that! Luckily, there were ways to bypass the real-time wait. Yet… by doing so I completely killed the essence of the moon cycle. The narrator retelling the story. The moon phases tied to the messages. That was all a waste on me. When I scrolled through the chronicled messages, there was no variation in moon wane. The chapter overviews were humorous, but felt out of place hearing them all at once. A terrible waste my gorging, that if ingested in smaller packets would have made a greater emotional impact. It is a shame, as from purely a design perspective, the moon cycle was an original and positive addition.

Graphics:

Sworcery's 2D graphics are purposefully pixilated. The characters are all tall and lanky, with their legs and hands of one pixel width each. Pixel bushes have contrasting pixel leaves, and a pixel dog leads the player through a pixel forest as a guide. The graphics overall are delightful, and while the character faces are but a singular pixel, the emotion still oozes out. When a skeleton warrior takes a hit, it's animation is so fluid as it recoils, that it looks shaped of 3D blocks rather than precise pixel squares. In stark contrast to the pixels are the number of gradient effects, which are very smoothly anti-aliased. Their presence gives the game its modern flare, from sparkles to rainbows (eww rainbows). While Sworcery allows for zooming the camera, the game feels best left at a far view; zooming imparts no added detail. Besides, the benefit of the PC version is its ability to display ALL those pixels. Calmly traversing the pixelated land is second only to the sound as to why I would recommend giving this game a moment's time.

Sound:
We found the game's sounds and music to be bold and we were happy. Why did I just speak in the second person just then? Anyways, together with the pixels, the acoustical choices are the best part of Sworcery. The music has a stirring and surrounding quality that objectively supports the adventure genre. Very fitting as it is, but while soundtracks for videogames try and obscure themselves to support the onscreen action, Sworcery's bold flavor of synthesized instruments and conventional has richness to the quality that grabs you. It really is a soundtrack that could sit on your MP3 player and enhance an event. It doesn't have to be Sworcery. While the soundtrack hovers over the events of the game, I'd say the gameplay probably isn't worth suffering over just to hear the music. Instead, the soundtrack could be enjoyed, not alone, but billowing over anything you want to put with it. Going for an epic walk? *kabloosh*, there you go.

The game's sound effects follow the same style of the music. Actions such as the swinging of the heroine's sword emit a cavernous echo slash. The cry of that heroine is equally cavernous and alarming. Since I'm not often used to having sound effects that stick out so much, I found it rather refreshing. It reminds me that I'm playing a game, and probably better, these sounds feel powerful without resorting to the distorting sizzle of explosions. Not every sound demands voice. As the lagomorphs and deer dart into the brush, and the player brushes the sparkling water, small tinkling musical motifs are played. This is the more relaxing side of Sworcery, away from the pitfalls of puzzles and combat. Indeed, there is an optional segment to jam out to the gentle strumming of a wandering musician. I can recall only one voice-acted character, the woodsman, and he is my favorite part of the game. His awkward banter gives respite and subtle humor. "Oh hey, so uhh did you… hear about that uhh hmmmm… sport?"

Misc:
From the perspective of the impatient gamer who is rewarded in progress, sworcery features too much backtracking. The graphics are beautiful, but I'd rather enjoy them as a wallpaper then be hampered by reprise on my quest. To add to agony, the character's sauntering pace draws more attention to how much backtracking exists. The optimal design would have been to allow instant travel by double-clicking the sides of the screen to jump to the next. When cut scenes are needed on that screen, just disable the fast travel. Easy as that. The game takes about an hour and a half per chapter, but most of the time spent is hostage to traveling.

There isn't much to say about the storyline except that while some may find the quixotic text accompaniment to be annoying, I found it a pleasant distraction. Your interpretation may vary.

Conclusion
In summary: Sworcery has beautiful pixel artwork set against a flavorful soundtrack and audio-scape. Sadly, too much of the backdrop will be seen when backtracking. Puzzles are unrewarding, while combat is inconsistent. The addition of the moon cycle is great, but just not a great fit for a PC release. The same is said for the interactivity from mobile, and the limited control alternatives available. Sworcery would make an excellent audio-visual screensaver, but makes an ok game.

by Zott820

During the first day of E3, I knew I was destined to get my hands on the Playstation 4 for the first time. Looking around the Sony booth, I saw there was a large area dedicated to playing Knack, an exclusive title that was revealed at last year’s E3. I got in the hour long line and here is what I thought of Knack:

The Sony staff member said Knack is classified as a “Character action game” and is a great throwback to old Sony games like Crash Bandicoot. Goblins are attacking the human world and scientists develop Knack to defend the city. I’ve heard the main character Knack described: “Knack is a set of relics imbued with consciousness.”

Gameplay
The Knack demo had four levels with the grand total playtime being about 15 to 20 minutes. The first level is normal sized Knack progressing through a city and defeating enemies. The second level shows off the stealth elements where Knack can shed his body pieces and can walk around as a shorter, transparent being with very low health. The third level showed off ice visuals where a normal sized Knack had ice armor for extra health. The final level allowed you to control a supersized Knack rampaging through the city.

Most of the gameplay was based around Knack doing light platforming, clearing out enemy resistance and then moving on. Around the environments are destructible yellow objects that help Knack regain health and power his super meter.

Controls
The game controls were extremely simple. The main control stick moves, the right stick does a dodge, X jumps, Circle grabs cars, Triangle sheds particles for stealth Knack, Square punches and super moves are two face buttons together. There was no block button and double jumping and dodging seemed to be the only way to keep Knack alive against projectiles.

One of the new PS4 features: When you open up a treasure chest, you get an item and have the ability to “copy” one of your friend’s items and keep it. In the demo, there were a list of fake friends and I selected one of them to enhance my special meter. The “Share” button on the controller did nothing during the E3 demo when I pressed it.

Graphics

The Sony staff member said that Sony Japan Studio’s goal was to reach CGI visuals. The closest video game art style and visuals that currently are close to Knack’s is Rachet and Clank: Tools of Destruction and Sonic Unleashed (day levels). The game is visually stunning with tons of particle effects, a overflowing helping of color and smoothness.

Knack is the best looking launch game I’ve seen for Playstation 4. Image what developers can do as we go even further into the game development lifecycle.

Knack is launching with the Playstation 4 later this year. While I really love the art style, visuals, cinematics and fluidity, the gameplay is a little too simple and the difficulty currently too easy for me on the “Normal” difficulty to see myself playing it seriously. Let us know which launch games you are excited for in the comments.

by BlueZero

During Day 2 of E3, I was able to attend a presentation of Titanfall, the much anticipated FPS coming out this year from the ex Infinity Ward Call of Duty producers. With tons of people lined up to get a look, I’m super lucky to be able to report what I’ve seen and comment on the development progress:

If you know nothing about Titanfall, It is being developed by Respawn Entertainment and will be published by EA. Respawn Entertainment was formed by Ex-Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella. They both created the Call of Duty franchises and left due to a dispute with Activision about their bonuses related to the sales of Call of Duty.

The Titanfall closed door presentation was a ~25 minute multiplayer game. Staff from Respawn Entertainment were playing from the next door room to populate the server with humans amongst the normal AI opposition. The multiplayer mode of Hardpoint had teams competing for control of three capture points A, B and C. The mode is similar to Ground War in Call of Duty.

The game started with the player’s character inside a ship with other soldiers before they did a space jump to a planet surface. You can see the opening portion was identical to the gameplay Respawn Entertainment showed off at the Microsoft press conference below. The character jumps out of the moving craft and then there is a very brief cinematic feeling mission briefing from an AI character piloting a Titan.

I couldn’t tell if there were any infantry classes or not. The main character on screen started with an assault rifle and an RPG he used against the enemy Titans from roofs. During the presentation, an infantry unit was able to cloak themselves and sneak around the battlefield. There was also a pistol looking weapon that fired ricocheting bullets.
With a game called Titanfall, the Titans must be carefully balanced for handling and strength so not to make the infantry useless. There is a nice cat and mouse mechanic between infantry and Titans where infantry units will chip away at the Titan health with rockets and can climb the back of the Titan to attack a critical point. The Titans can easily crush infantry units and decimate them with the rocket launcher. During the presentation, the main player only died from the Titan’s rockets which is saying something considering there was probably E3 health boost/reduced damage in effect.

Infantry units can command the mighty Titan by calling them down like a Supply Drop from Call of Duty. After the two minute countdown, the player can call down the Titan from the airship and it crashes to the ground. I really enjoyed how the Titan’s hand lifts the player into the enclosure and there are a few moments of blackness as the Titan’s HUB boots. The Titans themselves were not as stiff as I expected. They appear to handle with almost the same level of turning quickness as current FPS games to be able to target individual infantry units. As I mentioned, the Titan’s rockets were extremely effective against infantry units as was the electric rail gun when perfectly aimed.

Titan versus Titan gameplay is visceral with bullets whizzing by while pilots dodge sideways. A successful melee attack of a Titan against the enemy Titan has the mechanical claw ripping the player out of the cockpit. On the Titan HUD, there is a damage indicator which is very useful. If a Titan takes too much damage, the player can eject and choose to run away or offensively land on the other Titan as they did in the E3 conference.

As the game timer ticked down to the final minutes, the team received evacuation orders to get to a evac point. Infantry who died during this phase don’t appear to respawn. The drop ship returned during the final 30 seconds for boarding and the main player made it on the ship. Lots of infantry units were left behind. I couldn’t tell if Titan players were concerned about evacuating, I assume they would want to eject out and get the large amount of points.

The gameplay feels like a great mashup of more recent Call of Duty games with the art style similar to Battlefield 2142. Infantry moved a lot quicker and are more mobile than COD thanks to the ability to climb ledges/wall run/jump and use a very slight jet pack boost. On the FPS speed scale, I would place the gameplay speed slower than Unreal Tournament/Quake, faster than the Battlefield series. Infantry movement speed I place just slightly slower than the Modern Warfare 2 “Witch” loadout (Commando, Marathon Pro and Lightweight perks)

Titanfall is slated for release in Spring 2014 on Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC. I’d likely be playing it on PC since the game will likely attract the Battlefield 2142 crowd to resurface and I'm sure how likely I'll have an Xbox One.

by BlueZero

If you have been lucky enough to visit the Nintendo booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center, you will have noticed in the middle there is a prize area where Mario and Luigi talk to guests. Here is Luigi being his hysterical self:

This is a minute of live Luigi action. I recorded this video on my camera, so that explains the quality. Luigi sure knows how to do a good Wario impression and flirt with the booth "princesses."

Luigi has a great reason to be happy now that people are finally paying attention to him. This is the "Year of Luigi" celebrating 30 years. Nintendo is creating New Super Luigi U and also released Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon this year.

by BlueZero